Avoiding Randy Bachman Syndrome

Mormon culture too often loses something when LDS authors and artists choose the national and international market over the LDS market. I call this the Randy Bachman Syndrome.

Bachman, for those who don’t know, joined the LDS Church in his native Winnipeg, Canada, in the 1960s, as the band he was in, The Guess Who, started to gain notoriety. At the same time that the Osmonds were known worldwide as Mormons, Bachman was regularly hitting the top of the music charts, first with The Guess Who, and later with Bachman Turner Overdrive. But despite the fame and accomplishment, he wasn’t widely known for being Mormon, and relatively few Mormons knew that he was LDS. Unlike the Osmonds, Bachman had little or no impact on Mormon culture.